Posted by tleemay on August 28, 2001 at 10:52:37:
In Reply to: isn't Iridium defunct? posted by mike on August 27, 2001 at 21:54:26:
No, they are back up and running after Motorola
took the major portion of loss at start-up. The
LEOS of the network scheme aren't good for
anything else then telemetry data transport and
SatPhone usage. They are less than 500 miles up
compared to the much higher and coverage efficient
VANDA/DATA domestic and Intl sats. There was no
outside party really interested in the fleet since
you had to buy something like 65+, to gain global
coverage. So, Iridium wiped the slate clean and
started afresh with new investors, and without
Motorola, sometime last March.
The new LLC paid $25 mil for a network that
originally cost $5 billion to start and lowered
the usage cost per minute down to where domestic
cellular was about 10 years ago. They also lowered
the cost of the end user equipment to about half
of what it was. Initial reports of service usage
since the re-launch have been favorable compared
to early last year when Iridium was first offered.
My company operates communications and dataframe
relays through the Iridium, Intelsat, PanAmSat
and Inmarsat systems. We even sell our own version
of hardware to use for both in SatPhone and data
apps. There is one key between the data transport
of all the systems, one delays IP data and bursts
it with forward and store technology during low
usage hours with scalable data packets and
bandwidth, the rest are pretty much instant with
minimal delay. The original question was a trick
one.
As to the Cortez question, I am not sure at this
point, I have not been booked for the 9/8 single
day trip. But, since I will be coming off
7 total days of DMing other trips the week before
before the 8th, I will need to be convinced to do
it.